Bearings

Mary Ellen Miller was a poet and Associate Professor of English at Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green.

These 35 poems vary a little in impact, but all are competent. Ms. Batchelor’s themes are familiar: love, memories of childhood, of parents, of places and people. Her approach is a very quiet one.

More than once, as in “Victoria Postcard” and “Pinned on the Wall,” the last two lines make the poem. Building toward heavily suggestive last lines is the contemporary fashion, but this technique is tricky to handle, since the poet runs the risk of sounding portentous. Ms. Batchelor’s quiet approach makes the technique work, almost without exception. Perhaps the one exception is “Cyclist,” where the last two lines, instead of being pregnant with meaning, are merely pregnant:

“bicycle built / for one” sounds as if it intends to say something momentous, but it fails to do so. This is not typical. More typical is the simple, direct, and meaningful closing of “Stormy

This poet has a fine hand with line breaks and a lovely, almost new, way of being simple without being simplistic. She is a poet that makes one want to write poems.